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The isolated and lonely genius of the keyboard, Glen Gould, once remarked that Schoenberg did not care to be asked by his composition students why such and such a process served him well. The question made him feel like a centipede who was asked in which order it moves its hundred legs, and afterwards could move no legs at all. Gould felt that there was something impotent-making about the question. No such impediment, I am happy to say, is felt by Hans Dieckmann in writing a book on analytical psychology; it burgeons with the fruits of his thought.
Of course, before attempting to learn analytical psychology from a book, it must be remembered that the art of analytical work resides in the alchemical mixtures of the personalities of the analyst and the patient, in the mysterious processes of the psyches of both partners and the particular sensitivity of the analyst for discerning and interpreting these. Indeed, Dieckmann cautiously calls the book an introduction. Throughout the book I was continually aware that he has filtered and produced a titrate of some of the essence of analytic work; hints of its mercurial quality and complexity are ever present.
Dieckmann, as doyen and founder of the C. G. Jung Institute of Analytical Psychology in Zurich, is also President of Honour of the Deutsche Gesellschaft Für Analytische Psychologic (DGAP), Österreichische Gesellschaft für Analytische Psychologie, and the Berlin Institute, as well as a Patron of the Cape of Good Hope Centre in South Africa and the C. G. Jung Institute of Perth. His recent task as President of the International Association of Analytical Psychology has kept him in touch with training issues the world over. His profound understanding of these and his long years of practice as an analytical psychologist make him admirably suited to make this important contribution to analytical psychology. Although some of his own particular interests are not obvious in this book, some years ago he was kind enough to allow me