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Fun to read, this book certainly is—but also far more. Apparently easy to take in, it has persistent after-flavours, takes a deal of digesting and, in the end, to change the metaphor, it seems to be a satisfying jig-saw puzzle from which, despite the disruption of the picture by the boundaries of each piece, a portrayal of Jung's basic concepts emerges remarkably clearly.
The words archetype and archetypal are used, albeit only occasionally, with a confidence which would have missed its mark forty years ago in the London world of discussion between psychoanalysts, analytical psychologists and group analysts. Around that time for example, Winnicott would declaim that ‘archetype’ was not a word he recognised, far less valued. Later his views changed, largely owing to the persuasive arguments of the then members of the Society of Analytical Psychology in London.
The collective unconscious is referred to particularly by Guggenbühl-Craig, who found that it was that concept which drew him to Jung. He can thus say of himself that at one and the same time he feels he was born a Jungian psychologist, and that, on a personal level, he was never a great admirer of Jung the man.
Symbolic transformation is not mentioned in so many words, but Robert Stein, according to my interpretation of a particular encounter of his with Jung, gives a telling example of it. He was a student when he asked the following question: ‘Professor Jung, how can an individual carry this new spirit of individuation back into a world that has no adequate vessels to contain it? Do we not need, as Jesus said, new bottles for the new wine?’ ‘Jung was obviously upset with my question’ writes Stein, because he responded irritably saying that I would not have asked such a question if I had understood the concept of the self, and he made sure to let me know that in Biblical times they used wine-skins, not bottles. What he said essentially was that the self points the way towards new forms and rituals and that by re